


Oh, It Is Love

by panpipe



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-27
Updated: 2010-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panpipe/pseuds/panpipe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler’s not stupid—when he really thinks about things, about Caroline, about what they have gone through, he knows that his feelings for her are no longer platonic. (Set post-2x11, using scenes from previews for the upcoming episode, 2x12 The Descent.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, It Is Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Hellogoodbye song of the same name.
> 
> Mirrored on LJ [here](http://panpipe.livejournal.com/105877.html#cutid1).

The first day after the full moon, Tyler doesn’t go to school. It’s not that he can’t face anyone or that he’s ashamed to face Caroline—which he kind of is, he’s never cried in public like that before, and he really didn’t like it—but instead because his body fucking hurts. He feels like he should have expected it, really, because hell, he probably broke every bone in his body transforming into a wolf last night, and it’s not like Mason’s journals had been sunshine and rainbows.

But it _really fucking hurts_.

Caroline stops by the house that afternoon. Tyler hadn’t thought anyone would come visit—after all, he’s still not on speaking terms with his only true friend, Matt—so he didn’t tell his mother to turn away visitors.

Caroline appears like a beacon of brightness and sunshine in his doorway, loudly whispering, “I brought cookies!” Then, in a normal tone of voice, she continues, “And homework. But most importantly, cookies.”

It’s ironic he thinks of sunshine when he sees her, considering vampires are supposed to be incapable of walking in the sun. He should ask her about that sometime, he thinks wearily. If he has to stick to legend, why doesn’t she?

Caroline walks to the bed, still smiling but looking apprehensive. She sets the cookies down on the edge, and then looks for a chair to sit on. She settles for the computer chair at his desk, which is just close enough to be friendly yet far enough away so as to not invade his personal space.

He laughs a bit, one of those silent in-your-head laughs, because really, it’s a little ridiculous. After she forced her way into the dungeon to hug his naked, broken body, Tyler really would have thought that Caroline would feel completely at ease sitting on the edge of his bed. It’s a good quality, he thinks to himself. One of many, he’s starting to realize.

She bites her lip and glances around the room, eyeing the posters of swimsuit models and Playboy bunnies with poorly covered distaste.

“Does it bother you?” Tyler asks, mustering a weak smirk. He’s not sure why he asks—perhaps because he feels a need to assert himself, assert who he’s always been, to identify with the past Tyler, to not lose himself in this new, strange, disconcerting world of being supernatural.

But maybe he also wants to see how Caroline will react.

Caroline’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she curtly shakes her head “no”. He suspects she’s lying.

“Why are you here, Caroline?”

It doesn’t make sense. Not that any of it makes sense, but some of the past week he could understand. Not wanting him to be alone—that’s Caroline all over, trying to fix people and take care of them and help them even when she fucks it up royally. Not wanting him to hurt anyone—that’s Caroline making sure everyone is safe, that her friends and even strangers are okay as well. Sticking around to see him broken, battered, and abused—that’s Caroline thinking she’s doing you a favor, even when all it does is add to the shame of the transformation.

Caroline’s eyes narrow once more—either in surprise or annoyance, he can’t really tell. “To see how you are, of course.” Her voice softens as she adds, “I’ve been really worried about you.”

Tyler flashes back to last night, her worried, tear streaked face as she hugged him tight and told him everything would be alright, and suddenly the unfairness of his situation, the outrage he feels at being trapped as a werewolf for the rest of his life comes welling to the surface, lashing out at her. “Well let’s see, Caroline. I chained myself up in the old family dungeon last night, broke every bone in my body, and then sobbed, naked, in your arms. How do you think I am? How do I look? I haven’t seen my reflection today, so be honest.” The last words are almost snarled.

Caroline’s brows furrow in anger, and he thinks he imagines blood darkening her eyes. “You look like shit, Tyler. Enjoy your freaking cookies.”

She stands up, that flouncing flow of movement he’s come to associate with her, snatches her purse from his desk, and thunders out of the room. He hears the door slam as she leaves the house.

After a few moments, his shame and outrage fades, and he’s left with the aching loneliness of his situation once more.

 

Tyler isn’t sure if Caroline is truly just being kind or if he has become her latest pet project, but he finds he doesn’t much care what the answer is. It’s nice, having someone to talk to, who knows the new but most important part of him and doesn’t run away. He doesn’t even mind the fact that except for one night a month, she’s stronger than him, which he finds the most perplexing part of the relationship. Tyler’s always valued being in control.

Mostly, though, she makes a prettier replacement for Matt than he ever thought he’d find.

Not that he doesn’t want to fix things with Matt, because Tyler does. The two have been friends since they were practically babies, and as much as Caroline knows about Tyler, she’ll never know him quite like Matt does.

Things are still strange between them, though. Matt feels guilty, Tyler feels guilty, and neither of them will talk to the other about it, aside from awkward one-time apologies. When Tyler tries to mention it to Caroline, Caroline insists it wasn’t his fault, that Matt wasn’t thinking properly, but no matter what pretty words Caroline attaches to the situation, it doesn’t erase the memory of Matt’s eyes, filled with rage and hatred and deathly intent. Tyler wants everything to go back to how it was, but he's just not ready yet.

 

In the week after his transformation, Tyler finds that life goes like this: He chats with Caroline before first period at the lockers, sometimes about the supernatural thing, but mostly about what they got up to last night and what plans are formulating for the weekend. In class, Tyler hangs out with his jock friends as usual, though things with Matt are strained. Most of the other boys are smart enough not to get involved in the fight, and luckily he and Matt only share two class periods. After school, Tyler sometimes talks with Caroline a bit more, but mostly not. If he goes to the Grill, he goes with his old friends. If he sees Caroline there, the two smile, nod, and wave, but do not interact. The first time they saw each other there after the transformation, he waited to see what she would do, to see if she would introduce him, let people know they were friends now. Instead, she had almost looked panicked, and had quickly waved and turned her back to him.

Apparently Tyler was good enough to talk to, one on one, to spend the most traumatic night of his life with, but not good enough to be introduced to her old friends as one of her new ones.

Not that Tyler wants to get to know either of the Salvatore dickhead brothers, but he really thought the night of the transformation counted for something.

Apparently not.

One night, at another of the town’s endless Founder festivals, he notices Caroline talking to someone. He inches closer, and Matt’s form becomes visible right as he sweeps Caroline into a kiss.

“Damnit,” he mutters, and at that moment he’s not sure why he’s so bothered by it—much the same way he wasn’t quite sure why he was bothered by Matt showing up at Caroline’s house that night—but he knows this is the most rage he’s felt since thinking Caroline was lying about the not-being-a-werewolf thing.

Almost as if Caroline heard his whispered outburst, she breaks away from Matt and glances around the street. Tyler doesn’t know what is said, but Caroline hurriedly and dismissively pats Matt on the arm and walks away.

 

Tyler’s not stupid—when he really thinks about things, about Caroline, about what they have gone through, he knows that his feelings for her are no longer platonic. He wants to own her, to possess her, to mark her so that no one else will ever think they have a higher place in her heart than him. He thinks it’s probably the wolf talking, which makes him more uncomfortable about the werewolf bit than ever.

 

As the next full moon approaches, Tyler feels rage welling up inside him. It’s triggered by the most minute thing—someone accidentally shoves him in the hallway, he drops a pin, Caroline avoids his gaze—and suddenly he wants to rip someone’s throat out.

The feeling terrifies him, because Tyler knows that now he’s probably strong enough to act on the impulse.

That’s why, the night of the football game, he does everything he can to keep himself in check. He counts to ten before the match. He counts to ten during the match. He imagines the guys he hates in their underwear, or being forced to make out with a really ugly chick.

It works moderately well, and only one guy is a bit worse for wear by the end of the match. He deserved it, anyway.

 

When he sees Matt talking to Caroline, his face leaning in close to hers, none of the anger management tricks work.

Instead of walking over and bashing Matt’s face into the nearest wall, Tyler heads back to the field to calm down. He’s sane enough to realize that Caroline might be upset if he tries to kill her ex-boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, _ex_ -boyfriend, Tyler repeats, trying to reassure himself that yes, everything Caroline had with Matt is in the past.

 

He stands there for about thirty minutes, chatting with a few of his teammates that haven’t left for the after party yet, and debates whether he even wants to bother with the party. It used to be a no-brainer: win the football game, grab a kegger and party like he didn’t have to go to school tomorrow—because usually, he didn’t. The joy of being a star football player in a small town. Now, there seems to be a new, more appealing choice: Go home, wallow in self-pity and not have to pretend that everything in his life is perfect.

Not that life was perfect before—his dad was an asshole, and the only other girl he’d really liked before Caroline had chosen that man-boy Jeremy over him. Even calling him a man-boy seems to be overestimating him, in Tyler’s opinion, though the kid has done a lot of growing up since. Now that Tyler knows him better, Tyler thinks he’s kinda all right.

But that doesn’t take away the sting of rejection from before.

If Tyler is drunk and feeling maudlin, he thinks loving Vicki Donovan is probably the reason he hasn’t seriously dated any girls recently. The whole wolf thing certainly doesn’t help matters, though.

Still, all of that had added up to normal teenage angst. Tyler didn’t stress too much about it, because there were always girls willing to sleep with him and always more alcohol to forget he didn’t like himself that much.

 _You’re too weak_ , his father’s voice berates. _You’re a Lockwood; you have to live up to the family name. Can’t even fight a pipsqueak like the Gilbert boy?_

It echoes in his head: a lifetime of never living up to his father’s expectations, a lifetime of failing to fit his father’s ideal of being a man. Tyler doesn’t like himself when he acts like his father, but he doesn’t much like himself when he acts on his own either.

The old way of coping doesn’t work so well anymore, but the problem is, Tyler still doesn’t know how to live with who he is. Worse still, he has no idea how to live with who he’s becoming. No matter what Caroline says, he’s not sure a few glasses of whiskey are going to dull any of it.

 

“Tyler, I need a lift,” says a voice by his ear. Tyler almost jumps as he realizes it’s Caroline.

“Uh, yeah, sure, of course,” he replies—stupidly, an annoying voice in his head chastises—without thinking. Then he remembers that Caroline had a ride to the game. “But I thought you came here with Bonnie?”

Caroline puffs up in anger. Tyler thinks she almost resembles an angry baby chick. “Urgh, she is off making kissy faces at Luka or something. I don’t want to have to stick around for that.”

Tyler almost asks about Matt, but thinks better of it. He grasps her hands, his eyes locked on hers and deadly serious. “Whatever you need, I’m right here.”

For once, he means it.

 

He’s still in his football jersey and pads when he takes her home. His father taught him to be a gentleman, so he walks Caroline to the door, makes sure she’s safe. As if she needs protection these days.

She thanks him for bringing her home, and he kisses her.

Tyler knows why he kisses her. Seeing her with Matt earlier that night fills him with a need to make sure she knows she is his the same way that he knows. Tyler finds himself thinking that maybe he should have kissed her softly and sweetly like the kiss he saw from Matt, but that’s not who he is—not before, and certainly not now.

 

Caroline puts firm hands on his chest and pushes him away, reminding him of what exactly she is capable of. Her eyes are large and wide, staring at him in confusion. “Would everyone just stop kissing me?” she nearly shrieks. She’s inside the house and slamming the door shut before he can finish processing the sentence.

Vampires, he thinks sullenly.

 

Tyler’s daily ritual is interrupted after that. Caroline avoids him like the plague, her eyes darting away the second they make contact with his.

For the first time, Tyler wonders if he deserves it. He never used to care what girls thought of him, as long as at the end of the day they’d still be willing to sleep with him. Somehow, with Caroline, the same standards don’t apply. He doesn’t want just sex, he wants all of it, all of her.

So he waits, and gives her the space he suspects she needs.

 

He and Matt duke it out about Caroline a few days after the kiss incident. Matt slams him against a wall and shouts, “What are you, in love with me or something?”

Tyler stares back at him, confused. At first, it’s as though he can’t process what Matt is saying. When he realizes, he shoves Matt backwards, keeping a conscious restraint on his strength. “Where the fuck did you get that idea?”

Matt rushes at Tyler once more, and grabs the sides of Tyler’s letterman jacket, holding Tyler in place. Tyler could have easily reversed the situation if he’d wanted, but first he needed to know what Matt was going to say.

“First it’s my sister, which, fine, whatever, she was a big girl. But my _mother_? That was creepy and weird. And now—now you’re stealing my girlfriend?”

“ _Ex_ -girlfriend,” Tyler sneers.

He shrugs off Matt’s grip and smoothes out his jacket. The tension in the room is so thick that no one in the hallway moves. Tyler knows that the gathering crowd is waiting for the first punch to be thrown—something Tyler is barely holding in check. He tries counting to ten, but instead his mind circles back to _in love with Matt_ again and again.

Then the rage begins inching towards Tyler’s boiling point. The only thing keeping him from throwing punches is the fact that this is _Matt_ , his best friend for as long as he can remember, and he still puts _some_ stock in the bro code. However, the fact that Matt thinks Tyler’s newfound friendship with Caroline has anything to do with Matt and no other explanation pulls at the frustration and self-loathing that has been building since Tyler turned. No one knows what he is going through, and no one ever will.

“Not everything is about _you_ , Matt,” he bites out, “despite what you think. Your sister came on to me, your mother is a slut, and Caroline? I think Caroline’s finally ready for a real man.”

Tyler watches as Matt’s hands tighten into fists. It feels like slow-motion, watching as Matt prepares to pummel him for the insults to his family. Alaric Saltzman, however, catches Matt’s fist before it makes contact. He launches into some bullshit lecture about not fighting, talking things out, and aren’t they supposed to be friends?

All Tyler hears is Matt say, “Whatever, man. Just stay away from Caroline,” before he turns and walks away.

Tyler scoffs. He isn’t going to force Caroline to talk to him, but he’s certainly not going to ignore her if she wants to.

 

The next time he and Caroline talk, it’s been weeks. It’s the night of the full moon, and Jules is yelling at him, telling him the Salvatores killed Mason and that it’s his fate as a werewolf to destroy vampires. That he should be happy to do it. After all, the vampires want werewolves dead just as much as Tyler wants revenge for Mason’s death. All are her words, her suppositions—not his.

He thinks it’s a little funny that she waited until the full moon to reveal this to him—a time when he’s still most likely to fly into an uncontrollable rage and the only time he’s more powerful than the vampires standing before him.

He looks at them, the vampires— _plural_ , my god, it’s plural—and sees Caroline’s worried face. The same face she wore as he transformed, the same face she wore as she asked him if he would be all right.

After that, it’s easy to know how to answer Jules.

“Damon’s a dickhead I’d like to see dead, and Stefan is a self-righteous douchebag,” he says, carefully, and Jules looks triumphant until he continues. “But I don’t think they’re all bad.”

“You can’t be serious,” Jules bites out.

He’s standing there, debating what to say, knowing that all of them—Elena, Bonnie, Stefan, Damon, even their goddamned history teacher is in on it—are waiting for his answer. He wonders if he wants to expose himself, his one weakness—Caroline. That’s when he makes eye contact with Caroline once more, and her eyes are seeing him, no one else but him, waiting anxiously to hear his decision.

So he goes with the simplest answer. “Caroline was there for me before you cared enough to bother, and she wasn’t telling me who to kill, either.”

He turns and leaves the room, but not before glaring back at everyone, silently challenging them to follow him.

 

Of course, Caroline does. Follow him, that is. He’d hoped—he’d known—she wouldn’t be able to resist that look in his eyes. He also hopes she won’t be able to resist the split second of vulnerability he showed, because he only lets his guard down for her. He wants her to understand what that means for him—for the two of them.

“Tyler,” she says, as she jogs after him. She’s not really out of breath, though, because as she has explained, breathing as a vampire is different from breathing when you’re alive. You still need to, just like you need to sleep, but you just don’t need to do… quite so much of it.

“Tyler,” she says again, louder.

He slows to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, and she’s suddenly right beside him, tugging on the sleeve of his letterman jacket. “I wanted to tell you, but—”

Tyler sighs. “They wouldn’t let you, right?”

She nods, biting her lip anxiously.

“Whatever,” he replies, trying to sound disinterested. He’s not sure what he feels. Definitely betrayed, betrayed that Caroline would lie to him, whatever the reason, when he was so completely open and honest with her, so honest with someone for the first time in his life. But another part of him feels glad there really are no secrets between them now, that he still wins out over Matt because he knows. He knows what she is capable of, and he still accepts her.

That has to count for something.

As they walk back through the woods, towards the dungeon he calls home once a month, Caroline begins to babble. She talks about school, about history class, about how strange Tyler is going to find going to class knowing their teacher is a vampire hunter, continuing on to tell him he’ll get used to it. She keeps talking until they reach the door of the dungeon, even though he never once responds.

As they stand there, awkwardly waiting for the other to speak, he asks, “Did you know?”

She looks at him, eyes wide with concern but obviously overjoyed that he’s finally talking. “Know what?”

He should have specified. There had certainly been more than one reveal that night. Like, oh yeah, Matt wasn’t trying to kill him. Elena’s doppelganger made him. That’s right, she has an evil doppelganger. And Mason dated her. That was a fun one to try and understand.

“About the werewolf bite. Last full moon, when you stayed with me.”

“Oh!” She blushes. “Yes, um, yeah I did. I mean, at that point it was still a legend, but now that we saw what happened to Rose, it’s definitely true, so I probably shouldn’t—”

“So you knew,” he says slowly. “You knew I could kill you with one bite, and you stayed.”

It’s not a question, but Caroline answers anyway. “I couldn’t just leave you there alone,” she replies, those big brown eyes full of emotion.

Tyler laughs, then, at the ridiculousness of the situation. Here he is, a junior in high school whose biggest worry in life is supposed to be whether or not he’ll pass chemistry, but instead he’s talking about the possibility he could kill the love of his life thus far.

Her face falls and he realizes, with a twinge of guilt, that laughing was probably not the best reaction. “It’s just—” he begins. “It’s just too Romeo and Juliet,” he finishes.

Caroline raises an eyebrow.

“Hey, I actually did read that freshman year.” She raises the other eyebrow. “Fine, I read parts of it.” He sighs, and glances towards the moon. “Look, can we just try not to end this—whatever this is—by killing each other?”

“You’re really going to compare us to Romeo and Juliet?” she asks incredulously. He feels a blush creep into his neck, and Caroline starts to laugh.

In that moment her beauty mesmerizes him. She’ll always have it, he thinks distractedly, even when he is old and gray. Assuming werewolves aged. Maybe they didn’t.

Maybe it didn’t matter.

She’s still laughing when he kisses her, and this time it’s slow and sweet and thoughtful and all those things he should have made the first kiss be. She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back.

Tyler’s not Team Werewolf or Team Vampire, he decides. He’s Team Caroline.


End file.
